Driving In Traffic

Squidoo is a great way to get the word out and just plain fun

A year or so ago, I tinkered with using squidoo to highlight my Dollar Philanthropy blog.

Squidoo page:  http://www.squidoo.com/dollarphilanthropy

I liked it because I could put links to the nonprofits I liked best and also pull my blog feed into the Lens. That made it easy to keep the content fresh-- as long as I keep my blog current. (lately I've been bad at it).

Recently, I revisited and made another lens for Awesome Animal Nonprofits.  I was delighted to see that Squidoo has really added a bunch of bells and whistles that make it a really cool tool.  I then created another account just to put up stuff that I found personally interesting --- that really had nothing to do with running a small business, nonprofit or healthcare (I know... boy those are strange bedfellows).

I started with a Lens on the town I live in http://www.squidoo.com/Smyrna-Georgia and for some reason I'm making about one a week on other topics. That got me to thinking that it would be a great marketing tool for a number of industries. It would be a great way to highlight seasonal retail items that a shop carrys.  It would be a great way to highlight an artist's community.  It really has so many uses. 

For SEO purposes, it is an easy way to increase the number of links to your site.  Additionally, the comment and polling tools gives businesses a way to interact with their customers without having to start an integrate a blog in their website. 

So... drop on by Squidoo and see if it is a good tool for your business.

Celebrating Blog Action Day

This year the topic is Poverty and from all my years working with people with disabilities, it is one that is close to my heart.

Since, my other blog, Dollar Philanthropy, is a better medium for this discussion.  I encourage you to visit the post there.

Calling all Humanitarians...

The Charles Bronfman Prize is looking for a few good Humanitarians. 

The Charles Bronfman Prize is an humanitarian award of $100,000. It celebrates the vision and talent of an individual or team 50 years of age or under, whose humanitarian work has contributed significantly to the betterment of the world. Its goal is to bring public recognition to young, dynamic individuals whose Jewish values infuse their humanitarian accomplishments, provide inspiration to the next generations.

Over the last few years, Bronfman Prize judges have considered hundreds of qualified nominations from around the globe -- young women and men whose diverse range of humanitarian efforts includes ground-breaking applications of medicine and science, education, human rights, conflict resolution, community development and compassionate care.

       

What They Are Looking for:

                     

• Today’s heroes who serve as an inspiration for the next generations.
• Next generation leaders who have a vision for change that will better the world in a meaningful way;
• Nominees who have created a mechanism for acting on their vision in ways that deliver measurable results; and,
• Nominees who exhibit innovation, leadership and impact in their chosen field.
• Individuals or teams, not organizations. We want to hear about the individuals who created the visions on which the organization is based.
• Nominees who are 50 years of age or under by December of the year of nomination

So if you know someone who is a good candidate for the Bronfman Prize, please visit the website for nomination information and forms.

SEO Tip: Four Places Where You Should List Your Website

One tenet of search engine optimization is that a site's rankings are influenced greatly by the number of sites that link to it.  Seems easy enough, right?

Well, unfortunately many are duped by unscrupulous "SEO Gurus" that use spam postings on blogs and sham sites to drive up the number of links to a site.  This tactic certainly works, but I would advise against it.  Afterall, your company's good reputation is the hardest thing to achieve and also the easiest thing to lose.  All it takes is for a link to your company or its logo to be placed next to an advertisement for a porn site and you are "screwed"  (all puns intended).

If you are a do-it-yourself kind of person, there are a few places where it is worth the time to list your site.  Here they are:

DMOZ Open Directory Project

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. Listing your business is free and easy (link on upper left-hand side of each page).  Many of the search engines routinely cruise DMOZ for new sites that have been added.  The downside of the human-editing process is that your listing will not appear immediately.  You will need to give it a few days to a few weeks to appear.  But geez... its free and you can list in multiple area if appropriate for your business.

Kudzu.com

As a subsidary or Cox Enterprises, Kudzu.com is a great platform and well advertised in the local markets it covers.  Kudzu has both free and paid services.  The free service includes a basic listing and allows customers to leave reviews, which are becoming more and more important in the marketplace.  If you want to optimize your rankings within Kudzu and add photos and videos of your work, the $75/month package is within some small businesses advertising budget.

Flugpo.com

This is a relatively new business listing site that adds a social networking spin to things.  I like that they clearly post their code of conduct for their network participants additionally their FAQs provide a clear explanation of what to do when the code of conduct is violated.

Joint Win-Win 

This is a specialized listing site that focuses on companies that donate at least 8% of their gross revenues to charity.  I realize that not everyone can use this site, but I love the idea and thought it worth including.  With Cause-related marketing and the desire of consumers/customers to buy and do good growing in popularity, this free listing service makes a lot of sense.

Photo by Afferent Rapture

St. Benedict's Podcast

I've been working with St. Benedict's Episcopal Church to improve their web presence.  I have been working on getting a podcast up and running.  I even spent several hours designing the logo. 

They have decided to have two types of programs. 

• Meditative Moments:  which are short (5-6 minute) episodes that are designed to be inspirational and stress reducing.
• Sermon Cast:  these are broadcasts of sermons that are given during their Sunday worship.  They hope for these to be used by members but also allow people interested in the church to hear the types of topics that are discussed and hopefully be less hesitant about coming to church.

So it is with great pleasure that I say that we finally launched it.  It is called St. Benedict's E-Cast. Click here to check them out or you can listen directly from their site.

Flock: Web browser test

I'm a huge Firefox fan.  I was thinking about upgrading to Firefox3 and was researching the features and reviews when I found an article on the Minneapolis Star Tribune site by Anick Jesdanun that discusses the many options to the Microsoft web browser. 

Opera 9.5 is discussed but the author also discusses the Flock2 browser.  I had not heard of it but was intrigued because it integrated with many of the social networks and was really make to appeal to the "web 2.0" (ick -- I hate that term) enthusiasts.

So I decided to try out Flock.  Afterall, it won a Webby.  It's pretty easy to use and very intuitive.  I am actually writing my blog from the Flock Interface.  I haven't published yet, so I can't say how easy it is to select from multiple blogs.  However the WYSWYG editor seems very similar to many of the other editors I've used. 

The other thing I like is that it allows you to select a web-based e-mail as your default e-mailer.  So there will not be anymore clicking on an "Contact Me" link and having IExpress open up.  YEAH!!!!! 

Another awesome feature is that you can connect to your Facebook account and keep a "friend feed" open.  In your friend feed, you see their status and you are alerted to if they have added media.  If they have, you simply click on the media link and a small bar is opened at the top of the window and you can scroll through and open things of interest.  There is also an "actions" link where you can post to profiles, poke them, and other typical facebook features.

You can also easily import all your bookmarks and preferences from Firefox directly to Flock.  It has a Myworld feature that I need to explore more--- at first blush it looks similar to the igoogle homepage with similar functionality.

Thus far, Flock is very interesting and I kinda like it.  I plan on exploring the extensions to see what other cool stuff you can do.

If you have used Flock--- drop me a line and tell me what you think is cool.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Flock, Social Media, Web Browser,

Branding

To me--- nothing says comfort on a winter day than looking at a the red and white of Campbell's Tomato Soup and knowing all I need is a good grilled cheese sandwich. Years of experience with the product, memories associated with those experiences, the occasional TV commercial that gives me the warm fuzzies and the consistent goodness of Campbell's tomato soup have all come together to create an a feeling of contentment and home by just seeing the can. 

Branding is a process by which we try to use a variety of tactics to elicit a positive emotional response from customers and potential customers.  It is much more than selecting a logo, colors and packaging.

Branding involves communication, imagery, and reputation building.

In order to brand effectively, one needs to:

• examine the strengths and weaknesses of the competition,
• examine your own strengths and opportunities for improvement
• communicate and listen to staff regarding perceived internal strengths and goals
  
• listen to customers desires, needs and wants.

From there, we can begin to understand the possibilities for changing customer perceptions in order to improve customer loyalty and probability that a customer will come back-- again and again.

While the informal and personal tone of the blogosphere and social media, to date, has been identified as a risk of  starting a blog, there is the very real possibility that these very traits could play well into marketing and branding endeavors. Afterall, what better way to build an emotional response to what you do than to start a relationship with your customer? What's the harm in letting people know a little bit more about you as long as it is presented professionally?

Branding and Marketing: Do Blogs Fit In?

Marketing and branding are not an activities that manipulate the intrinsic properties of a product, service, company or a cause. Instead, they are processes by which you influence customers, both real and potential, to create in their own mind that your product or service has more value than those of your competitors. 

Many think branding and marketing are the same things.  Unfortunately, they are not.  However, the two are interdependent and intertwined, which probably accounts for much of the misconception.  It is a broad generalization (but take the leap for a moment)... but marketing has its foundation in educating people about you and branding is about taking that knowledge and making it ring emotionally.

Well.... that sounds easy, huh?

Blogs... where do they fit in?

I'm glad you asked... blogs are just one tool to help both educate and to create an emotional bond to you, your business/cause and products/services.  If done correctly, every post of a blog can be a little glimpse into you, your values, your commitment to a cause and/or your passion for what you do.  Now don't get me wrong... I'm not saying that a business/nonprofit blog should be an unfettered gush of emotion and personal musings.  Instead, I want to propose that the words that you choose to talk about something are a subtle reflection of who you are.  Everything you write gives readers a chance to understand how you think, what is important to you, how smart you are, and if you are a person that they might like.

And lets face it... people like to do business with people who they like.  If they like you, they will spend more money, be more loyal customers and tell people about you. 

How does this translate into marketing and branding... well.....blogs give folks a chance to get to know you and decide if they like you.  If people like you and your blog, this will give the emotional underpinnings for your branding efforts to take hold.  The beauty of it is that while doing all of this you can talk about your cause/products/services/company.  Business and nonprofit blogging is simply good bang for your marketing and branding bucks.

Thanks to Anosmia for the photo.

Tips for Starting a Company Blog

I've recently been looking up tips for starting a company blog.  I know what I think but I wanted to see what others think too and are there some major take aways.  I ran back across a "classic" post on Mack Collier's  The Viral Garden  blog.  It was posted a while ago  11/28/2006.  It discusses things to consider before starting a company blog. It is actually a summary of a 10 step article he had written for Marketingprofs.com (paid subscription required).

He emphasizes the following:

1. Understand up-front that a blog is a LONG-TERM investment.
2. Write the blog from the READER’S point of view.
3. Have a comment policy in place before you start blogging.

If you have to narrow things down to just three tips --- these certainly are the most important. One tip that I would add---- search out and read blogs in your area of expertise before starting a blog.

I think this is excellent advice for anyone considering starting a blog— not just company blogs. These actually have been lessons I’ve learned through trial and error. Like many other bloggers, I find the hardest thing is to be diligent about posting. Life gets busy and I get distracted. Just like cheating on a diet, it is important to recognize the error and then pick up and start again. Don’t judge yourself and don’t quit– just get back to doing what you need to do.

Is Going Green Worth the Green?

Today I had a bag of Sun Chips with lunch.  On the new, redesigned label I saw that the Frito Lay company now boast that Sun Chips are now made, in part, with solar energy and the company also buys Green Energy to offset the 100% of the electricity required to make the chips.  This is not an advertisement for Frito Lay, but you can read more here.

Small to medium nonprofits and small businesses both often have small, tight budgets.  Much of the time, there just isn't the extra money to buy solar panels, batteries for storing electricity or anything like what big companies are able to afford.  Add to that, the fact that some recycled products cost considerably more than other less environmentally friendly counterparts.

So --- is going green really worth the green?  Well, perhaps so. Especially, if you are willing to make some tradeoffs and adjustments.

First, there are some easy ways to be friendlier to the environment.  Using technology to communicate with stakeholders can be a big cost saver and be kinder to the earth all at the same time.  Marketing e-mails, emailed newsletters, ezines and electronic distribution of other educational materials eliminates printing and direct mail costs--- which in the day of increased postage rates can add up to serious change.

Second, the tide is beginning to shift in consumers wanting to be patrons or donors to organizations who are making strides to go green.   In many cases, people expect to have pay a little more to offset the cost of going green.  The key here is "little".  People are willing to be a little inconvenienced or to spend a small amount more. 

Third-- there are a bunch of smart people out there who have some great ideas about going green.  One such place is the Foundation Center.  They are offering free classes at some of their regional offices to discuss innovative ways to begin going green. Earth Ministry is an organization focuses on helping Christians and Christian organizations to be better stewards of the Earth.  Even if you are not a Christian the Earth Ministry's Blog has some good and quick ideas about making small changes toward going green.

Obviously, Frito Lay believes there is marketing and good will value in taking steps to go green.  They have proudly changed packaging and created a website to get all the bang they can for their buck. 

What do you think?  What is your company or organization doing to be more environmentally friendly?  How are you capitalizing on the good will value of your efforts?